The Importance of Flexible Scheduling and How to Make It Work for Your Business

Companies that offer flexible schedules help accommodate their employees’ different lifestyles. This is becoming increasingly important as a method to attract quality accounting and finance candidates. Because more job seekers want control over their work-life integration, your team should be able to set their own work hours. Fortunately, implementation can be accomplished in a few steps.

Discover some benefits of offering a flexible schedule and how to implement it for your accounting and finance team.

Increased Work-Life Integration

Your team members appreciate being able to schedule their work around their personal lives. They can participate in their children’s school activities, run errands, and take care of household responsibilities while fitting in their work. This helps reduce stress and the potential for burnout.

Enhanced Engagement

Employees who work flexible hours remain engaged longer in their work. They feel highly respected and empowered by their manager. As a result, the staff tends to miss fewer days of work, stay focused longer, and accomplish more each day.

Greater Productivity

The ability to set their work hours lets your team members get more done each day. They can work during the times they are most focused and productive. Your employees’ energy levels and concentration levels should be high, allowing more tasks to get finished.

Stronger Employee Retention

Because employees prefer greater control over their time, they appreciate having a flexible schedule. This increases the likelihood of staying with their employer long-term. The longer you keep your staff, the lower your recruitment, onboarding, and training costs.

Additional Top Talent

Offering a flexible schedule encourages the best job seekers to want to work for you. Because many candidates find this perk even more attractive than salary and benefits, you may be able to save money in these areas. You also could attract more applicants than your competitors who do not offer flexible work hours.

Fill Your Team’s Needs

Ask your staff what their interest and needs are for working flexible hours. Find out whether they can effectively function as a team and what would have to happen to make it work. Make sure that your employees would be available when needed for meetings, client discussions, and other responsibilities.

Create a Policy

Develop written rules about flexible scheduling requirements. This may involve having to be at the office or available by phone during certain times. Include how communication with staff will occur when they are not in the office. Make sure the policy is detailed, clear, and non-discriminatory.

Need Top Accounting & Finance Talent?

Implementing a flexible schedule for your accounting and finance team provides many benefits. Productivity, engagement, and work-life integration should increase. This can attract the best candidates and lead to greater employee retention.

When you need to add the best talent to your team, reach out to Casey Accounting & Finance Resources. We have the candidates you need to fulfill your business goals.

Is the 9-5 Work Week Outdated?

The 9-5 workday was created by American labor unions in the 1800s. It was made popular in the 1920s by Henry Ford, who wanted to attract auto workers used to 12-hour shifts. Because today’s employees are accustomed to working 8-hour days, many still accept the setup. However, every aspect of working life has changed in the past century. With an increasing emphasis on organizing lives for greater work-life balance, it is time to replace a set workday with flexible hours.

Here are three reasons to modify your company’s work week with flexible hours.

Desire for Flexibility

Millennials, who make up the largest percentage of the workforce, want jobs that provide flexibility. Because work-life balance is a priority, they prefer the ability to set their own hours and work remotely more than have steady work or the highest possible pay. Allowing staff to take care of personal responsibilities while finishing their work tasks provides an increased sense of control over their lives. Employers who offer flextime typically have higher performance, increased job satisfaction, and lower turnover than employers who do not. This results in greater customer satisfaction and higher revenue.

Working at Peak Hours

Companies have automated most of the rote elements of work that used to comprise the 9- 5 workday. Because calculations, factory work, and typing jobs that were common in the 20th century have been automated, employees have more time for problem-solving activities. Although drowsy workers still could accurately put together parts on an assembly line, distracted workers in the creative sector cannot solve problems very well. They need to use their individual mental energy rhythms to find creative solutions. As a result, employees should be allowed to work when they are at peak performance. Whether early in the morning or late at night, staff should have wide parameters with minimal rules to complete their work in.

Greater Productivity

Research performed by businesses, industry associations, and academic institutions shows that average workers do not get more done in a 10-hour day than an 8-hour day. In fact, every hour worked beyond 40 per week reduces productivity and output both short- and long-term. As a result, productivity should be measured by the quality of output rather than hours put in.

Add Flexible Staff

Providing a flexible schedule for staff means changing your work culture. Allowing for increased work-life balance attracts and retains top-performing workers who remain engaged and productive throughout the day. Your company benefits from increased retention, customer service, and profits.

When your accounting & finance team needs to add members, get in touch with Casey Accounting & Finance Resources. As a recipient of the Best of Staffing Client Satisfaction award every year from 2016 to 2020, our team can provide you with the highest caliber of professionals in the field. Learn more today.